My clone external hard drive won't boot - start up?

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Level 1

4 points

My clone external hard drive won't boot - start up?

Hi,

I am selling my MacPro and need to clone its system drive for the new lap top I will buy soon. So I bought a new external 2TB HDD from OWC. I have found that this external HDD will not boot up, even though it says it is bootable, and appears in the Start Up prefs when I select it. It sppears on the desktop, doesn't make any weird clicking noises as well.

I am using 10.6.8 OS X. The 2TB HDD has two partitions (created with DU), one is bootable (Mac OS X extended journaled), and the other is a regular HDD space for media etc. It is GUID. It has "Ownership" checked in the info box.

I used CCC 3.4.4 and since this is 'hopefully' a one time deal, selected the 'Delete anything that doesn't exist on the source' setting. I cloned my system drive to the bootable space and had no problems with the transfer. Plenty of space to write all the files. I even made sure everything was checked in the 'source' window that a system drive might need. Everything was checked.

I spoke with a representive at the OWC Sales company and checked that this HDD can be used as a bootable drive.

I checked the connections: with external HDD with FW800, and Sata connectors. I have checked it with my Mac Book Pro as well. Same result. No boot.

I really don't understand why this drive won't boot, since everything looks correct.

Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, ideas for fixing this issue?

Thanks

M

MacPro 3GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.4), 4Gb Ram 750Gb HD -FCP 6.0.4

Posted on Feb 10, 2012 11:31 AM

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Answer 1

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Feb 10, 2012 11:58 AM in response to MarcusOne

How are you testing this? You said the drive appeared in Startup Disk system preferences. Did you select the drive that way and what happened? Or did you test the drive by holding down the option key during boot and selecting the drive that way? In which case, what happened with that?

I clone boot drives with CCC with no problems. The fact that it shows up in Startup Disk makes me wonder how you are testing this and how you are connecting it to your machine. With FW it should be straight forward. With SATA, if you are using a driver for SATA then I would expect it not to work since of course the drive isn't loaded when you start booting. And if you have both SATA and FW don't keep both connected at the same time.

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Answer 2

MarcusOne Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2012 1:47 PM in response to X423424X

Hi,

When I saw the clone drive in Start Up prefs, I highlighted the icon and pressed the 'restart' button. My machine restarted, but then defaulted to the main system drive and not the external hdd clone. I've tried restarting with the option key down, and I get the screen that shows me which drive to select. Instead of two drives (i.e clone and system drive) I get just the main system drive.

I might add I am at work and using my MacBook Pro as a test machine.

FW800 connection with MBP as well.

I really think that two partitions on a drive are the problem. If I had one partition, I am thinking the clone would work. Maybe somehow, in the process, the start up process doesn't see the boot partition and only the other partition which is a regular Mac OS extended one.

M

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Answer 3

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Feb 10, 2012 1:58 PM in response to MarcusOne

I really think that two partitions on a drive are the problem. If I had one partition, I am thinking the clone would work. Maybe somehow, in the process, the start up process doesn't see the boot partition and only the other partition which is a regular Mac OS extended one.

Multiple partitions are not a problem. I have that.

The disk should have a GUID partition table, each partition formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Try running CCC again. If it doesn't complain about anything try booting from it again. If you have the same problems then I would start to suspect a problem with the enclosure. Which (make, model) enclosure by the way?

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Answer 4

MarcusOne Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 10, 2012 2:28 PM in response to X423424X

Yes I will try again. I did make sure it was GUID btw. Strange how this happens, but glad to see you are using multiple partitions.

As for the drive, OWC informed me it was bootable. Mercury Lite-AL Pro 2TB hdd.

M

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Answer 5

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Feb 10, 2012 2:35 PM in response to MarcusOne

I think you mean Elite, specifically this one since you mentioned it had SATA. If so that certainly is bootable.

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Answer 6

Feb 10, 2012 2:36 PM in response to MarcusOne

Shouldn't be any problem with a bootable clone on a multi-partitioned drive as long as the volumes are named differently and the drive is formatted correctly. I use one here and there's no problem booting from it.

What might be a problem is trying to boot it on a newer Mac with an original OS later than the one you've cloned.

In this case, if the MBP is a recent model (Oct 2011 or later) and shipped with Lion, it isn't going to boot any flavour of Snow Leopard.

It should, however, be bootable on the Mac it was cloned from. If not I can only suggest re-cloning as X423424X says, and if that doesn't work, starting from scratch and reformatting and partitioning the drive.

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Answer 7

MarcusOne Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 11, 2012 6:34 PM in response to noondaywitch

This is an old MABP from 2007, with 10.6.8 installed.

I'm now back to the MacPro and trying to re-clone. I will re-erase and re-partition and see what happens. CCC is failing me right now though. It worked in the past.

Any other thoughts?

M

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Answer 8

Feb 11, 2012 8:07 PM in response to MarcusOne

MarcusOne wrote:

This is an old MABP from 2007, with 10.6.8 installed.

I'm now back to the MacPro and trying to re-clone. I will re-erase and re-partition and see what happens. CCC is failing me right now though. It worked in the past.

Any other thoughts?

M

If CCC is failing you, try "Restore" in Disk Utility instead. Unlike CCC, it only does one thing, a full backup, but any backup I've made that way is bootable. Also, when you selected your external drive in the Startup Disk preference and clicked Restart, did you get a confirmation dialog asking you to confirm the choice? Finally, I assume you're using the FW800 connection rather than the eSATA connection.

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Answer 9

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Feb 11, 2012 8:15 PM in response to MarcusOne

CCC is failing me right now though.

What does that mean?

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Answer 10

MarcusOne Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 11, 2012 11:07 PM in response to FatMac-MacPro

I've never used Restore before but will give it a go. Incidentally, I decided to get rid of the multiple partition scheme and revert back to a single one. Still, the same thing happens. CCC is failing me i.e the software used to work for me, and now its not working this time.

M

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Answer 11

DanCoops

Level 1

0 points

Mar 15, 2012 1:15 AM in response to MarcusOne

Not sure if you managed to get this issue resolved yet Marcus, but I too have a similar problem:

Currently I'm upgrading from Leopard to Lion (via Snow Leopard) on both an iMac and MacBook Pro (both Intel), but before I proceed with the OSX upgrade I wanted to back everything up. Thus far I have partitioned an external firewire drive (G Drive - one that is bootable), and cloned each machine using Carbon Copy Cloner to it's own partition (both GUID). There is plenty of space left over on each partition.

The issue - I can boot the OS X from the external drive on the MacBook Pro but not on the iMac.

When I restart and hold down Option on the iMac the only drive that appears is the HDD, not the other two selectable drives that are visible if I boot up on the MacBook Pro. On the iMac in System Prefs > Startup Disc I can see all 3 drives but when I select it and restart, the machine freezes on the grey loading screen and goes no further.

Not that it should make a difference, but there is a 3rd partition on the external drive that is currently empty (for extra storage).

Any help is greatly appreciated - I can't find any relevant answers elsewhere. Thanks,

Dan

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